The gridlock in Long Island is notorious. The difficulty of navigating New York traffic, however, does not excuse negligence. Should you get into an accident with a UPS truck, you may have the right to hold the driver or the corporation liable for the losses you endured.
Long Island UPS truck accident lawyers understand how challenging it can be to find the time to bring a legal case forward in the wake of a UPS truck accident. Fortunately, you can benefit from our services. When you work with our office, you benefit from our combined decades of experience while focusing on your own recovery.
UPS Truck Driver Duty of Care as a Social Contract
Upon taking to the road, you enter into a social contract with all of the other drivers around you. This social contract is known as the duty of care. Duty of care states that UPS truck drivers, among other parties on the road, must take reasonable action to prevent you from coming to harm.
The violation of this duty of care by truck drivers or other parties can see the offending parties held liable for the accident they caused. To bring a violated duty of care and its related losses to the attention of civil courts in your area, you must file a UPS truck accident claim or complaint.
Claims outline the nature of your accident, elaborate on your losses, and argue that you deserve financial support. Your claim must tick certain boxes if it is to move forward from a county clerk’s desk to a judge.
Presenting UPS Truck Accident Claims as Personal Injury Claims
Generally speaking, you can treat a UPS truck accident case like a standard truck accident case. If you’re bringing up a complaint against an individual driver, you must abide by the New York statute of limitations on personal injury cases. New York Civil Practice Law & Rules §214 gives you three years to act on your losses.
The same statute of limitations applies to cases addressing negligence stemming from corporations Like UPS. However, there is a chance that limited liability may impact your filing deadline. You can discuss what your reduced window of opportunity may look like with a UPS truck accident lawyer in Long Island, NY.
Long Island UPS Truck Accident Lawyer Near Me 877-751-9800
Assigning Fault for a UPS Truck Accident
Determining fault in a car accident with a UPS truck in Long Island, NY, isn’t always straightforward. You need to look at the evidence available at the scene of your accident as well as the role of motorists around you to determine who to hold responsible for your losses.
The good news is that evidence is often helpful in determining why your accident occurred. A UPS truck’s black box, for example, details the behavior of the truck and its driver at the time your accident occurred. While UBS may make it difficult for you to get your hands on a black box, you can work with our attorneys to both obtain and assess the data therein.
Other forms of evidence worth bringing forward and a UPS truck accident case to establish liability include:
- Physical evidence, including debris from cars, personal property, and/or the offending truck
- Storefront, dash cam, and streetlight footage
- Police reports
- Medical records
- Accident recreations conducted by professionals
- Expert witness testimony
- Bystander testimony
The purpose of the civil claim you submit is to both bring the importance of this evidence to light and to elaborate on the story it tells. You can work with our team to draft that story during initial case consultations.
UPS Employees and Independent Contractors
As mentioned, the role a truck driver plays in your accident depends on their categorization within UPS’s hierarchy. More specifically, if a truck driver operates as an independent contractor, that UPS driver must own liability for any accident they cause. A complaint addressing an independent truck driver targets an individual instead of a corporation.
It is, in this way, rare for UPS to hire a truck driver on a full or part-time basis. Doing so would require UPS to label the driver in question as an employee and provide that party with the full protection of an employee. Should you get into an accident with one of these rare birds, you may have the right to hold UPS liable for your truck accident losses.
You can work with a Long Island UPS truck accident attorney to determine what the relationship between a UPS truck driver and UPS may be prior to filing your claim.
Calculating Your UPS Truck Accident Settlement
The evidence you submit along with the body of your civil complaint does more than elaborate on liability and fault. It also establishes the value of your case. A court wants to know what the proposed compensation you are seeking looks like before moving your case forward, as that value is indicative of the severity of your losses.
How, though, do you go about calculating the value of a UPS settlement? What, too, is the average UPS truck accident settlement? There is no universal average by which you need to measure your accident losses. Instead, you should only refer to precedent when determining what damages you may be entitled.
In general, you can include some combination of the following losses in a UPS truck accident claim:
- Medical expenses and essential at-home care for recovery
- Lost wages and/or opportunities for other employment
- Property damage and repair/replacement
- Emotional distress
- Loss of consortium and/or companionship
- Wrongful death and funeral expenses
Let’s Bring Your UPS Truck Accident Case to Court
UPS and its drivers are not immune to accidents nor the consequences that come after them. Victims of accidents with UPS trucks can work with personal injury lawyers to address their losses in settlement negotiations or civil court. In turn, these victims May Merit the right to financial support throughout their recovery.
Do you have questions about how you can address a recent car accident with a UPS truck? Let the UPS truck accident attorneys in Long Island, NY, go to work for you. You can request a case consultation with Morelli Law Firm by calling our office or contacting us online.